


Until the Ribbon Breaks

by Theincrediblesulkmachine



Series: Riven [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Background - Freeform, Bonds, Chronic Pain, Conflict, F/M, Family, Gen, Identity Issues, Illness, JuniBlade, Kinda, Kissing, Love, M/M, Magic, Matt x Shiro, Mattashi, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind fuckery, Miro, Multi, Platonic Sheith, Platonic Soulmates, Prejudice, SHEITH - Freeform, Supernatural - Freeform, Torture, Vampire AU, a lot less shippy too, action scenes galore, altea, always A N G S T, but its as close to love and smut as i can get, but theyre all super into it, due to the science of bond manifestation, emotions emotions and emotions, galra - Freeform, galtean bonds, haggar the bitch witch, how to tag the fic that got away, i really am incapable of writing romance, i wouldnt say its smut, im actually kind of proud of this, it turned out a lot less emotional than i had intended, jk i love her, kallura, loosely, nothing creepy, small portion, some romantic content, soul bonds, soul mates, the action flick of fics, varying description of varying abilities, yay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 03:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16400795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theincrediblesulkmachine/pseuds/Theincrediblesulkmachine
Summary: When Allura was a little girl, the world was a very different place; a realm full of magic. Then, the world truly had felt perfect, unerring dreamer that she was. The occult hadn’t been supernatural, it had just been.(That was then. There was very little joy in the world now.)





	Until the Ribbon Breaks

**Author's Note:**

> The fic that began from a vampire/vampire hunter AU-ish idea mostly rooted in Allura and Keith's Altean/Galran dynamic (and the ensuing canonical misunderstandings) i had in completely passing thought and that promptly took over and just would not stop... sigh. What have we cooked up this time, Muse? 15k worth of words in a completely new setting, thats what!
> 
> This may have shippy elements due to the nature of specie i am exploring here, but i at the core of my being dont believe in (AM INCAPABLE OF) writing romance/relationships as more than a method to drive plots forward, so there is that. That is why there is a Gen as well a Multi rating to this fic, i'm not sure if it still applies but i think it does? (Please do point out if that is not how it works, i remain a noob in regards to tagging my shit)
> 
> I hope you enjoy this, it got away from me and made itself a far more detailed thing than intended... (I swear i haven't forgotten about BMBaB; i've just been in an awful writing rut. this is the first thing i've been pleased by in ages.)
> 
> Please, _please_ do leave your thoughts positive/negative/constructive in the form of comments down below, not to seem too desperate, but i sadly need the encouragement to stay writing for fandom these days.
> 
> (thanks for coming to my ted talk: carry on!)
> 
> The working title of this fic was Genesis, and remained so until i changed it to reflect the song that settled me enough to write the last huge chunk of it that doubled this fics word count. Go listen to this song, a fantastic dark cover of a very prominently known song. (I like this better tbh) [Until the Ribbon Breaks- Addicted to Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntmLoNQnzLE&list=PLyEbCYgq6rCnyotcGRlu6kjjU09eQUbZe&index=3)
> 
> Also, happy belated birthday to the Love of My Life, one Keith Kogane. This was supposed to be uploaded yesterday in honour of him, but true to personal history, this fic, Just Wouldn’t End. (all the theory and world building i did, wasnt even included in this, but i felt it was done enough.)

  **ALLURA:**

 

When Allura was a little girl, the world was a very different place; a realm full of _magic_. Then, the world truly had felt perfect, unerring dreamer that she was. The occult hadn’t been _super_ natural, it had just _been_.

It was a logical balance that presided over it all.

_Riven,_ or the Divide of Creation was comprised of The Six, and they were each as like and unlike the others; The Alteans, the Balmerans, the Galra, the Mermish, the Oriri, and the Warenae.

Six sectors, six roles to play in the ecosystem of their universe- secure within the parameters of the hexagon;

The **Alteans** or the Air-givers, whose magic touched and sustained everything; their- _her_ \- people formed the bridges between the Six- the centre- and maintained the balance by giving freely of themselves. The **Oriri** , the core of creation and the foundation of the _Riven_ , so to speak. Neutral in appearance as well as ability, they were best known for their persistence and resourcefulness, they fed the populations of the other sectors, for their ability to produce (and reproduce) was unrivaled; The **Balmerans** were beings of earth and rock, sincere folk rooted in hard work and faith, they were the builders, the smiths responsible for the systems of the world, the architectural infrastructure. The **Galra** were those of flame, siphons; feeding off the kindling of others to keep themselves going. Their role had been symbiotic; they took from the other five sectors and provided peace and prosperity; the soldiers who kept the balance. The **Mer** were water based, somewhere between fish and folk; sly and cunning, hard to contain, but impossible to refute. Their contribution was somewhere between beauty and trickery, and truth be told, there was often a fine line between them. The **Warenae** were _halflings_ , the shifters; they were a potent mixture of two spirits in one body, magic winding through that point of division and they could call either to the beast or the being. They were both scholars, and fierce warriors; the most varied in their existence due to the nature of their abilities, but intrinsically tied to the environment.

In the world Allura remembered, there was no fear- because who would be frightened of the expected order of things? Who dreaded balance? 

Being herself had meant freedom, the ability to let loose _._ Having been born an Altean meant a certain amount of revere and gratitude, for it was indubitable how vital a role her kind played. Allura still remembered that joy of being, but in the way of an old much-visited memory; worn at the edges, glimmering soft and thin but immensely precious at its core.

(That was then.

There was very little joy in the world now.)

Everything had changed, _shattered_ in one crucial moment… The Galtean war; the moment the Galra had given into their base instinct- hunger, their need to consume, to destroy…

(And destroy they had.)

They had taken more than their fair share, and upset the delicate balance…

Indelicately destroying her entire nation.

Allura was no longer a little girl, by any standard, nor was she that optimist. She was just the last of her kind, of her lineage… just _tired_.

When Allura was a little girl, she hadn’t been the last Sacred Altean. The world had been a kinder, more fantastical place.

Then, Allura hadn’t been alone.

***

**KEITH:**

 

When Keith was little, he knew the meaning of loss before he knew how to put it into words.

It had felt like someone had taken the warmth from him, within and without.

He had been all of a year, when he had first felt the chill that overtook him, engulfing his senses. Mostly it was the complete, unending numbness, he was only a pup but the sensation he remembered most clearly, and unforgettably, was the isolation; how being touched seemed wrong, icing over his veins, lacing over skin.

Acute pain, desperate loneliness.

He couldn’t even understand it, let alone voice it.

(It became more manageable as he grew older, but it never truly went away; a dull ache that made its home in his very bones.

Some days were better, but whenever he began to forget, it would resurface. A reminder of what was forever lurking beneath his skin)

When Keith was a little boy, he found himself in an unfamiliar place unlike anything he had known before; The Oriri Wasteland, he had heard his Papa call it.

The air wasn’t as alive, the heat wasn’t as cohesive as home had been (protectively all encompassing). It burned his outside but didn’t touch his core, and still, he felt cold.

He always felt cold, even when he was angry.

He was _always_ angry.

He didn’t want to be this wrathful being, and yet it seemed he had no more control over it than he had the cold.

Sometimes, sometimes- when his Papa was better, he would hold Keith and the pain retreated a little, and it was like he could breathe again.

It was but a rare occurrence; His father hadn’t in conscious recollection ever been entirely there; A will-o-the-wisp, a warping being; a black hole merely moments from collapsing in on himself.

(As a child Keith had never seen it; it was hard to miss, looking back now

Harder to wonder how he hadn’t taken Keith down with him in those excruciating final moments)

When Keith was a not-so-little boy, no longer under even the flimsy protection of a withering father, he began to realize there was something different about him.

He was not of the Oriri; couldn’t be; no matter how like the Terrans he looked.

He didn’t know what he was or where he came from, but what Keith did know was that he didn’t _belong_.

He was never content to stay, to settle. He wasn’t patient, or enduring, much preferring to keep moving and evolving. He didn’t _not know_ the restlessness that burned at his very core.

It was a band around his heart, constricting and always _pulling;_ a siren call, a _lure_ he could never pinpoint. It drained him of everything but a deep echoing _want_ , left him tired and angrier than ever. It made him want to hurt something.

(The way he always hurt inside, a deep aggregate of inescapable agony)

It made him feel lost, _begging_ to be found.

(He didn’t know why, or what it was, or what it came from.

He didn’t know anything, really.)

Even with Keith now legally an adult, he was still adrift; the only difference was that he knew no one was coming to find him.

(He knew one other thing…that he would never belong.)

* * *

 

**ALLURA:**

Three years later

Allura wrinkled her nose in supreme disgust; couldn’t truly believe she had _consented_ to be here, at this dingy, seedy dive bar that supposedly passed for a house-of-revelry frequented by the important members of the Oriri.

 (Or the ones important to her, anyway.)  

Coran had received intel that the leader of the Rebel faction of the Oriri would be here on this moon; He was a taciturn, wary man and one who hated the Galra just as much as she- having spent a year in their hell would do that to a person.

She had been looking for him for too long to no avail, and this was the closest she had gotten to some measure of success in her endeavours in the three years since the war, so she _would stomach_ whatever she had to.

Though, as she surveyed the bright green drink the lecherous bartender deposited in front of her with an over-the-top eyebrow waggle, she decided she would _not_ begin making true on that claim with the noxious liquid in front of her.

See, Allura was _tired_ of the way things were, _sick_ of the Galran terror that had taken over the waking worlds, and she wanted change. She wanted a return to simpler times where balance was predominant, and peace was incontestable.

(If she also wanted vengeance on the species that had taken so much from her, well, she could hardly be faulted, could she?

She had gained herself the proper reputation of not being afraid to do what had to be done. It brought her admirers as well as enemies, and she was okay with that.

She needed friends to help her through what she was planning, though, and there were a lot of contingencies she wanted to account for.

She just couldn’t stand by any longer.)

Having said that, she still had _standards_.

She gathered the skirt of the innocuous white dress she had chosen specifically for this madhouse, knowing it would stand out; both against her skin and in comparison, to the scant bodysuits the other females of this race were sporting.

It was a demure thing, shimmering silver where it caught the incandescence of the flashing lights, but minimally devastating in its own right, floor length and flowing, almost deceptively modest;

(Except for the slit on her left that exposed her leg all the way when she walked;

 Except for the way its neckline plunged nearly to her navel, while still revealing nothing but the barest tantalizing flash of skin;

Except for the way, when her equally silver hair whispered and swayed with the lilt of her steps, it revealed the wicked way the back disappeared, dress held up by only the cross of fabric on her shoulders, revealing miles of dark skin for the precise purpose of being something unmissable.

Except for the smile she wore, one aimed to decapitate, or at the very least disarm.)

Allura was a vision in that dress, and she knew it. She was dressed to kill and she would _ensure_ that her every move would bring her that much closer to what she wanted.

(Just try and stop her.)

***

**KEITH** :

 

Keith had been feeling off since the moment he had stepped into the club he followed Shiro into every Friday.

The pain had been exceptionally obnoxious that day, and none of the remedies, or comforts Shiro usually offered him, that alleviated the worst of it would work.

(Keith knew that but he would rather lie through his teeth and bear it, than give Shiro something else to worry about.

So, he pretended and shadowed Shiro to the ends of _his_ Earth.)

Like clockwork, Shiro made his way to the wall on the far left, positioning himself in the spot that would grant him the best view, through the throngs of writhing bodies, straight to the patrol switch-over.

It was just dementedly obvious enough that no one would truly think they would be there for anything bordering on reconnaissance.

(Hiding in plain fucking sight shouldn’t be this easy, Keith thought massaging his wrist through the sharp pang that suddenly shot through him.)

Shiro stilled, glancing his way as if worried, and Keith let go, feigning nonchalance until he turned back to the reason they came to this hovel. 

It was Shiro’s way of recompense for everything he had done during his imprisonment.

Keith didn’t feel Shiro needed to pay his dues, vehemently disapproved of it even- people in his place would have done a lot worse with a lot less provocation- but he still wouldn’t leave Shiro’s back unguarded in a place this public, much as he detested this shithole and the reason behind their being here.

Much as the noise grated on his already fraying nerves, set alight intermittently by a pain Keith had never been able to explain, or predict.

(Shiro had given him something he had never dared to dream of; an unconditional friendship, a support as constant as the ever-present pain, and Keith would do anything for him.

This was merely one uncomfortable thing in the unending list of his limits, when it came to Shiro.)

Like every Friday, since the last three before them, they watched as the randy slimeball geezer of a bartender was replaced by a much fresher face, wan and downcast as it was.

Matt Holt.

Shiro sucked in a breath, and tensed, and Keith instinctively found his eyes drawn to him in concern.

“Shiro?” his voice came out soft, like it always did for him.

(Just him)

“I’m fine.” Shiro said unconvincing, eyes roving over the sharp lanky frame of the boy, the hollows under his too intelligent amber eyes, the gauntness to his cheeks, the hunch to his shoulders as if trying to make himself invisible.

A sense of something unnatural about this demeanour on him, as if seeing a lion cower in front of something far below it on the chain of command; a mouse, perhaps.

Metaphors weren’t Keith’s strong suit, but despite the failed attempt, something about Matt didn’t feel right; it was evident in the divergence of the cold acuity of his gaze and the timidity of his persona.

He made to open his mouth, cross a boundary perhaps, and finally ask Shiro about Matt.

That was when that feeling descended again.

(Like a thousand razor blades in his bloodstream, like bullets in his bones, like flames going down his throat.)

Keith cried out, inadvertently, and Shiro tore his gaze from Matt, worried.

“I’m fine.” It was Keith’s turn to lie badly, baldly. He struggled to catch his breath in a manner that would portray him as doing anything but.

He tried not to fall to his knees and fracture to bits in this filthy fairground.

“Keith?” Shiro asked, grey eyes turning the full force of his worry to him.

If Keith had been less out of it, he would have realized the attention they were gaining; as it was though, Keith was in immense _pain_.

That was putting it mildly.

Keith was two seconds away from jittering _out_ of his skin would be a more apt description.

_(_ It was getting worse.

He tried not to sob out, holding his breath as if that would help.

( _Please_ )

Keith could honestly say he had never felt this way before, and if he continued feeling this way, he instinctively knew he’d be driven past the point of no return.

His knees buckled, and he choked out a easily transparent excuse to Shiro, ignoring the outstretched hand, instinctively knowing that letting Shiro touch him was not an option right now- would be a mistake.

The world spun, a barbed disco full of blinding lights, dulled only by the overwhelming agony that pulsed through him, louder than even the bass of the club.

Keith fled, leaving Shiro despicably alone with his thoughts and the subject of them, alone in a seedy crowd, as he escaped to… he didn’t know where, just that he needed to run, to follow, to be gone.

Keith only found himself stopping when his vision became an endless whirlpool of light, head pounding unforgivingly. It’s all his worst fears combined; an unfamiliar space surrounded by strangers, his senses failing him as his sight gave in to the pain, brushes of touch that impossibly seemed to intensify the pain, and disoriented him further, and further… and Shiro- Shiro left unprotected.

His breath comes in gasps and tatters of air, and he finds himself praying for deliverance just to make it stop.

(Make it stop)

Keith cried out as he felt a hand alight on his shoulder, shifting seamlessly into a whispering caress on his cheek, and suddenly it’s as if he snaps back into himself with a resounding crash, every inch of him suddenly on fire.

His eyes are filled with tears, trickling uncomfortably down his face, and he’s shaking like a newborn foal, legs unsteady beneath him.

Keith clenched his eyes shut, breathing in deep, the air sandpaper in his lungs. He forces his spine to straighten, his shoulders turning to steel.

When he finally gathered himself enough to be able to look, there was no one there; no one within touching distance, or even in the sphere of accountability of the shattering man.

He’s surrounded by a circle of empty space, as if a barrier had erupted around him.

Keith could feel every smoldering inch of him tense as he frantically ran what he knew and what he felt against each other, trying to figure out if he’s under attack somehow, or if he’s finally lost his mind.

As he weighed this (very distinct) possibility- after all, madness probably lingered in his genetic code, given what his father’s final years had been like- he caught a flash of silver and white in his periphery.

Then it was as if it had caught him.

It was like everything else ceased to exist, the second he set his focus on her; a woman, impossibly attractive, a study of contrasts in her appearance; cinnamon skin, arctic eyes and icy white hair, lithe body draped in what looks like starlight to his still dazed sight.

There’s something unmistakably more than human about her, the command in her gaze, the way her head tilted as she sent a considering, discerning glance around the room.

It settled on him, and she didn’t look surprised in the least.

Keith looked away, but his sight kept drifting back over, almost magnetic, and there’s that siren call again; a painful tugging in his lungs, as if he’ll cease to exist if he doesn’t obey.

The bands of the far-off longing tighten around his chest, and yet this time it was immediate and pressing and all his senses outright _screamed_ for her.

The awareness spread out over him, filled his head with a vague buzzing, and Keith could no longer deny the draw of her; she was dangerous- he could tell by the vicious, elegant beauty of her smile- and stars, he- he _wanted_ her.

Desire was always this far off concept in his head, something he knew existed peripherally, but happened to people other than him. Other than the perpetual itch to be somewhere, _anywhere,_ else, Keith had no constancy of emotion that wasn’t anger, or pain.

In truth, he wasn’t even sure if this was desire, except that it coursed through him, in all the ways the Terrans had always spoken of, setting him alight as if it would sear right through, as if he would die if he didn’t act upon it.

He couldn’t reason against it, couldn’t deny it.

This couldn’t be desire… it had to be something more nefarious, far worse… because this… _this_ was pure undiluted need.

This was _hunger_.

Subconsciously, maybe Keith had believed that he was too smart to be overpowered by something so… basal. He could barely even stomach the brush of a hand; every time someone had tried, it had always made him feel _wrong_ , a curdling in his stomach, and he couldn’t help but jerk away in rejection of the very sensation of touch.

And yet…

Keith needed, _needed_ to touch her; trace the rosewood skin, wind the moonlight strands of her hair through his fingers, to _taste_ her coral mouth.

For once the pain of not touching was worse than the pain _of_.

Keith just wanted to not hurt anymore.

When she finally looked back, he didn’t look away.

(He couldn’t.)

***

**ALLURA:**

Allura took notice of him instantly.

How could she not? As a diplomat- and a very much sought after lost princess- to a fallen kingdom of immeasurable power and secrecy, she knew how to garner- and handle- attention and had to routinely fend off many an unwanted gaze. Allura had always been able to tell when someone’s eyes were on her, and they often were, thus it was a mostly familiar sensation.

(And the way she was dressed was intentional after all)

Most of them didn’t look anything like the person who kept glancing her way, like the inevitable flicker of flame. He was an Oriri, likely one of the Terrans; the first thing she registered were the chiaroscuroed, almost lethal planes of his face; sharp edged and aristocratically defined, the effect only enhanced by his pale skin, dark eyes, and midnight hair.

The second was the desperation in his gaze; it was a frantic, wild thing, and it spoke to her of the spark she kept hidden deep within herself, covered in layers of polite smiles, rapier wit and endless tact.

(Most of those clamouring for her attention didn’t look at her like that… didn’t look at her- or feel this familiar; like the truth of her- at all.

They saw the princess, the masks she donned like the dresses she designed, this- _this-_ stranger looked at her like he _saw_ her.

It was intoxicating.)

His gaze was intense, the lights catching his eyes- reflecting off them in fractured shards of obsidian and slate, flint and sangria- did nothing to downplay that factor.

The third thing was just how striking he was, and Allura was incomprehensibly drawn to him.

He looked like obsidian flame, deadly but beautiful.

Could this be the faction leader she sought? The man behind the masks? All she knew of him was what she could see in this stranger: tall, dark haired, prominent scar on his face, and undeniably attractive.

He was said to have the charisma to recruit anyone to his cause, the irrefutable skill of a born leader and a sincerity that was unheard of, and inimitable.

_Unmissable_ , was the thing widely agreed upon.

Allura sharpened her smile like a warrior would sharpen their knives and met his gaze dead on.

His eyes narrowed but held hers without flinching away.

(Time to find out if this man lived up to the myth that shrouded him.)

She kept her eyes locked on his as she made her way over, inordinately pleased that he didn’t look away. It’s only when she was upon him that she realized that for once she didn’t know what to say; how to wield her words like the weapons they were.

He was taller than her, she recognized almost absently, attention snagged by everything else; for if he was a work of art from afar, the finely wrought details of his face only become more prominent this close up. There was also a sense of otherness about him, and it shifted as she drew near; a living, breathing thing between them.

“You are a very hard man to track down.” Allura says, opting for coy, rewarded by the suspicious shuttering of his otherworldly eyes.

(There was a softness to them this near, a flecked core of heather weaving through the indigo.)

“What could I possibly have done to warrant your attention?” he asked, his voice low but raspy. He held himself very still as he glanced, not at the neckline- deliberately plunging as the easiest form of the distraction to the Terran drives- but where the concealed dags of her cheeks would have been, and her ears, unmistakably pointed even under the white waves of her hair. “Altean?”

(Intelligent man, then; not everyone had the ability to perceive the fine line between artifice and reality, especially where her auras were concerned.)

Despite the clear want in his eyes, his perception obviously remained undiluted, and he kept his hands to himself.

(It was sad how remarkably rare that was)

Allura felt her respect of him kick up a notch, as she let the illusion fall, allowing her Altean aura to flare once before tamping down on it.

(She had, after all, _wanted_ to be noticed.)

His strange galactic eyes had yet to fall from her hair, only dipping once to the crystal on her forehead as it glinted into existence- before her glamour kicked back up- and the troubled crease of his strong eyebrows told her that he wasn’t too far removed from the truth.

“You’ve heard of me, then?” she said, smile curling in pleasure.

He inhaled sharply, and visibly tensed as she allowed her power to brush his skin. “Of you, yes.” He met her eyes momentarily before glancing over his shoulder. It was a terse movement, and when he inevitably looked back at her, his eyes darted down to her hands before landing firmly on her face. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Highness; or perchance have I done something to offend you?”

“Not at all.” Allura said, stepping closer. Her aura curled up around him, and it was strangely intimate- familiar instead of the intimidating she had intended it to be. “You may call me Allura.”

He stepped away, in lieu of returning the favour, jaw clenching in a way that made the scar stretch over his bones. It looked painfully deep, and ended alarmingly close to his eyes.

Allura was mesmerized.

(Looking back, she should have realized. She didn’t then.)

“How did you receive that?” she asked, reaching out to touch, needing to. It wasn’t the question she had meant to ask.

The man shuddered, as his dark gaze fell to the ground. “The world felt I needed to be taught a lesson.”

“How were you not blinded?” Her fingers were so close.

“I fought back for what I held dear.” He said grimly, eyes fixed, clouded in memory. “How may I help you, _Princess_?” he said, finally looking back at her, seemingly startled by her outstretched hand.

“You never did tell me your name.” Allura said, dropping her hand.

“You never did ask.” He remained silent after, modena eyes scrutinizing, for a small measure of flickering time.

She smiled, raising an eyebrow the barest amount, and waited.

“Keith Kogane.” His gravelly voice was soft when he finally spoke.

“Would you do me the honour of accompanying me, _Keith_?” Allura inquired, quietly. “I believe this is a meeting long overdue.” She gestured to one of the nearby private alcoves Coran had scouted for her.

Keith’s face was unreadable as he looked at her, one second too long to be entirely comfortable, before inclining his head.

Allura smiled again winningly as they stopped and was rewarded by a minor twitch of his mouth.

And well, once her attention had fallen to its strong set, she found that she couldn’t look away.

***

**KEITH:**

 

For all intents and purposes, it was just a kiss.

To call it such felt like a disservice. It was visceral, and it connected Keith to Allura in a way he couldn’t have imagined.

A brush of lips, fleeting, ephemeral.

A kiss, a first, until it wasn’t.

(Keith didn’t know who had started it, or _how_ , he only knew its call, its _demand;_ he couldn’t stop it if he wanted to.

_He didn’t want to._ )

A gasp as they met again, stepping closer, mouths meeting more irreversibly. His hands on her face, grasping; turning desperate.

(More.)

Her tongue coaxing his lips apart, licking into his mouth. Her hands sliding in his hair, leaving trails of heat in their wake.

It wasn’t enough.

(Keith needed more.)

It took the edge off, but it wasn’t _enough_.

There was that ache in his bones and the yearning he couldn’t place.

(He couldn’t breathe.

He needed but he didn’t know _what._ )

Frustration and pain brought reluctant tears to his eyes, and he made to lean away.

It physically hurt him.

She chased, though, bringing their lips back together, and the kiss turned sharper; her teeth scraped his lower lip, tongues tangling, teeth clacking together. His fingers turned into claws at her waist, digging in; her hands tugged at his hair, unrelenting, this side of painful.

Oddly, the sharp edge seemed to ease that clawing need.

Keith gasped in a breath and she, _Allura_ shoved him back, firmly restraining him against the wall. He slid his hands up her back, tangled them in the roots of her moon-kissed hair.

Allura, _Allura_. He exhaled her name, or he thought he did, it felt like a prayer, like salvation he hadn’t known he desired.

She yanked his hair back in retaliation, and the action exposed his throat to her, even as he groaned, hands going to his head in reflex. Even as she held his wrists and pushed them up above his head; pinning them.

_Yes_ , he thought nonsensically as her lips, _teeth_ , tongue skimmed his neck in quick succession

And then the rhythm changed once again, air shifting just so.

And then despite the imbalance in position, despite him being trapped against the wall with her considerable strength, Keith was the one in control. He could feel it thrumming under his skin, entwining in his pulse, sense it in the way her breath stuttered against his throat.

He twisted her around and then he was the one caging her in, back against the wall, and she shivered, delicate, before wrapping herself around him; arms at his shoulders, legs around his waist.

Allura was electric against him; crackling with energy and power, an exhilarating strength, a presence that lingered- _fit_ \- into his negative spaces; every jagged edge and abrasive surface. Suddenly overwhelmed, he dropped his head into the crook of her neck, elegant and sweet smelling, and gasped in an unsteady breath.

“Keith?” She murmured, and at that moment he didn’t know anything sweeter than the sound of his own name.

He could only see those tormenting lips shaping his name, no longer able to hear anything above the throbbing beat in his head.

All Keith knew was that sense of wrongness had ceased, the pain in his bones eased, replaced by urgency.

(For what?

He didn’t know.)

All he knew was the scream of his instincts, the ones he had spent decades denying.

All he knew was the _need, need, need._

All he knew was that he was no longer capable of refuting that _call_.

Keith reclaimed Allura’s mouth, selfishly, covetously, and he felt _right_.

His claim felt just.

_Yes_ , he thought, as his lips drifted down her jaw, lingering at her pulse.

_Claim._

***

**ALLURA:**

 

It started subtle, a heady feeling; dysequilibrium, desire, delight.

Allura wanted and wanted and _wanted_ ; Keith’s body was a searing line against hers, folding in her embrace, molding her how he wanted.

It was somehow sharp-edged yet exceedingly gentle, and Allura couldn’t think against the hungry brush of his mouth against her jaw, dipping down along the column of her throat.

(Wait.)

She tilted her head back, a breath escaping her, as his lips grazed her pulse point.

It skipped a beat, and Keith nipped it lightly, lingering.

She held him tighter still, and he stiffened in her grasp.

“Allura-” his voice was wrecked, scraping on the syllables of her name.

_Keith_ , she thought, past speech.

“I- I _don’t_ -” he seemed to struggle for words, for air, too-hot breath warming her neck.

It felt like he was seconds from breathing fire.

She laughed, small and breathy, helpless to the soft- chaste but searing- kisses he was peppering against her throat.

(Fire?)

“ _Allura_.” Keith murmured, almost trembling in her arms, and she felt the sharp point of incisors replace the gentility of his mouth.

They didn’t puncture her skin, but it was a close thing.

(Realization struck around the same instant as the many-headed snake reared its vile head;

_Galra.)_

Allura shoved him away viciously, furious; her chest heaving- now for a very different reason than the soft longing of the moments past- as she watched Keith go flying into the brick-wall opposite them.

She found thought returning to her in increments, each angrier than the last. It called up her considerable power as armour, like to like; solidifying in her grasp with the sharp sting of her loathing.

(Gods _, she sure knew how to pick them.)_

 “ _How dare you?”_ she was shaking- more hysterical than she had been in years. “How. _Dare_. You?!”

_(How could she have been so stupid?)_

Keith rose slowly, a hand to his copiously bleeding forehead, deceiving eyes glittering in confusion. A section of the wall splintered, chalk and dust cascading from the newly made dent. “Allu-”

“DO NOT SPEAK MY NAME.” she screamed, wild with rage, as she threw a hand up and clenched her fist.

He dropped to his knees with the vicious force with which she ripped the breath from his lungs, whatever lie he had been gearing up to deliver, dying _in nativitate._

Keith choked, those unholy eyes watering, as he grasped at his throat.

Allura’s eyes were burning too, for very different reasons; with the righteousness of rectifying old wrongs, and grudges.

(With tears.)

The Galra wanted to siphon her? To feed on _her?_ She’d give him a taste of her power willingly.

On _her own_ terms.

It was time that the Galra received their comeuppance; the slow eradication of their kind just as thorough as the genocide of her people.

She clenched her hands tighter, feeling disdain curl her lip almost as acutely as she could feel the phantom give of Keith’s throat under her palm.

(She felt a twinge of _something_ shake through her, achingly like sorrow, but Allura tamped it down ferociously.)

She would feel _no_ remorse for _this_.

***

** SHIRO: **

Every time, every single time that Shiro found himself in the same room as Matt, he felt inevitably drawn.

Some part of him- whether one of the many mismatched ones, or his own intrinsically human self, Shiro didn’t know- saw the drained boy and wanted to curl up around him; protect him with a fierce, concerning need that even Keith didn’t dredge up.

Usually this held true, but there was no doubt of what Keith meant to Shiro, and hearing stoic, stalwart Keith cry out smothered the animal instinct that Matt brought out in him.

“Keith?” Shiro asked, voice dipping in worry. Keith looked seconds from crumbling.

 “I’m fine.” He gasped, the lie obvious in the way he fought for breath; in the way his hands compressed at his chest as if that would ease the tightness.

Shiro stretched a hand, his human one, in hopes that some of what he was- his essence- would ease Keith’s agony but he flinched away from it, shying away with a desperation very unlike him.

He ran.

“ _Keith_ ,” Shiro called after him, forgetting that they were to be inconspicuous. He would have thrown caution entirely to the wind to give chase, but he was waylaid.

“Takashi?”

Shiro couldn’t say if it was his heart that came to a standstill first, or his aborted movement to follow Keith.

He closed his eyes and breathed in. It was cold, and pained, and shook him straight through.

Inevitably, incapable of doing otherwise, he turned.

He found familiar eyes the precise shade of honeyed-fire, looking straight at him; a plethora of emotions contained in the amber resin- concern, fear, disbelief and a misplaced relief that cut Shiro the deepest.

“Matt.” He said, voice coming out hoarse.

“You’re alive.” Matt said, hands shaking as he stepped closer. “Th-they said that you were-” he visibly swallowed as he clenched a trembling hand into his hair, almost staggering away as if unsure about his welcome.

He had after all been the first domino to topple in Shiro’s long, _long_ fall back to Earth.

Shiro saw the uncertain cant of Matt’s expression, the awkward hovering of his hands, and couldn’t bear the hesitance he read off him. He moved forward, to close the sea of tentativity that had pooled up between them, pulling Matt into an encompassing embrace. “I’m here,” he hushed softly, as the man in his arms let out a wrecked sob. “I’m alive.”

Matt sagged into his hold, breathing in deep, something that reminded Shiro of _before._ That spoke to the deep instinct within.

He thought of saying something, something that would help him get to keep this moment of contentment, something that would help Shiro convince Matt to stay.

(He decided not to speak, for fear of crushing the fragile instant)

Shiro almost felt at peace.

 (So, of course, it couldn’t last.)

Something grabbed Matt by the scruff of his collar and yanked him away roughly; Shiro reached out as if to grab him back, before realizing what it was he was seeing.

The moment had been shattered by sentries bearing a very unpleasantly familiar sigil; the Witch’s cross.

_She_ had found them.

“ _Matt_?” Shiro asked, staggering back involuntarily, fear constricting his heart in a second rib-cage.

Matt framed on either side by a chrome, dark armoured sentry who had him gripped by the elbow, looked ashamed but not surprised.  “You were _dead_ …” he said, downcast. “she- she said they’d do worse than what they did to- to me, to you... to my _family_ , to my sector... If _I_ didn’t help them.”

“What are you doing _here_ , Matt?” Shiro’s words were calm, at odds with the pure horror he could feel coursing through him.

“ _Takashi_ , they knew who she- _Katie_ \- was, where she was,” there was real panic in his eyes, his face, which he visibly reined in with a desperate twist of his arms. “ _Haggar_ sent me to find and kill the head of the rebel faction.” Matt said, straightening, if reluctantly. He tugged his elbows away from the sentries with some measure of disdain, pointedly not looking at Shiro, as if afraid of what he’d find in his face.

_Haggar_.

Shiro swallowed and looked at Matt- seeing the boy he knew some four years ago, overlapping with the man in front of him- as the man checked the digital screen embedded in his arm, likely for correspondence. “Do you know who it is?” Shiro asked, aware that his voice was intoning weirdly, somewhere between too cold and too casual.

“He’s supposed to be a patron of this joint; I can’t say why ‘cause this place is god-awful,” Matt laughed to himself, somewhere between scornful and bitter. “I was sent here the first time the witch’s informants picked up on his presence.”

Shiro felt his heart sink, gravity pulling it down under without mercy. “Friday, two moons ago?” he asked, before the next question escaped him without permission. “Since when are _you_ an assassin?”

Matt glanced up at that, an odd expression on his face; frustration mixed with guilt. Shiro had never seen such a look cross the carefree boy’s face. “Since when do you judge what other’s do for their survival, _Champion_?” he says sharply, displaying a hidden, vicious streak that Shiro would never have guessed Matt possessed.

(Maybe his Matt hadn’t.

Maybe that was what had grown in the voids the Galra inflicted upon him- _them_.)

Shiro flinched, and Matt bit his lip, appearing to realize that he had clawed open a sore. 

There was silence for two seemingly eternal ticks, before Matt turned back to Shiro, confusion colouring his amber eyes. “How did you _know_ it was four weeks ago?”

(Matt always was quick on the uptake- with an attention for detail, Shiro thought fondly, regretfully.)

Shiro had stopped by this hovel in dire circumstance, chased by the Empire, struggling and needing a place to hide himself and Keith. Keith hadn’t been faring well, near-collapse in having one of his episodes- left hollow in the face of the energy he had expended to protect Shiro.

They had happened on Matt within twenty minutes of their arrival; diminished but alive, face determined.

He had returned as often as he could, since; just for the few moments of reprieve where he could see Matt, safe, if wan.

(Shiro guessed he understood the hows’ and whys’, now; the universe wasn’t in the habit of handouts especially when it came to Takashi.)

“ _Do you know who it is_?” Matt repeated his earlier question, eyes gleaming with a frantic light, as Shiro neglected to speak, rooted to the floor in front of his own personal haunting.

(He considered lying, but ultimately in the face of amber fire, his self-preservation withered away)

“Don’t _you_?” Shiro asked, softly, still not wanting to be the one to drive the final nail into the coffin.

Matt just stared, face flickering in distress before evening out; before he closed those beautiful marigold eyes, and exhaled. When he opened them again, they were downcast. He nodded slowly. “I wanted to be wrong.”

“How long have you known?” Shiro asked, knowing he should be finding Keith, should be leaving, but he had always been helpless in Matt’s orbit.

“I had heard conjecture, that he- _you_ ,” here, Matt paused, shaking his head in disbelief, “was an escaped prisoner; that the man they call the Captain was a charismatic human with unshakeable sincerity…” he sighed, before continuing, sucking in a wavering breath. “I guess maybe I’d always known, or _hoped_ …You _have_ to know, I did think you dead.” He said suddenly desperate.

“I nearly was.” Shiro smiled, sadly, almost conceding.

“I think she knew too; that’s why I’m the one here.” Matt laughed again, bitter and disgusted. “It wasn’t until your _boy_ half-raised the roof, screaming, that all the pieces clicked into place.” There was the new sharp edge in Matt’s voice again, the part that had arisen from his stint in captivity, his survival mechanism. “I tried to ignore it for as long as I could. Even subconsciously… I don’t _want_ to hurt you Shiro.”

“But you will.” Shiro murmured; oddly, he felt no judgement, or resentment. Just overwhelmingly unhappy.

“But I will.” Matt nodded, a reluctant twist to his mouth as he clicked a small rod- Shiro hadn’t even seen him pull it out- and it extended into a staff. “…for Katie.” He said in an undertone, tears glimmering in those luminescent eyes, and there was that frustrated guilt on his face again, as if begging Shiro to understand.

Shiro _did_ , to be fair, but Keith would never forgive him if he just rolled over and allowed himself to die.

No matter who it was for.

(That was his first thought, but Shiro realized he wouldn’t forgive himself either, if after all this, he gave up what he had struggled to make worthwhile all this time; the successes he had fought for, after every time people told him he didn’t have much _time_ ; to live, to breathe, to be healthy.

To survive despite the Empire’s best effort.             

He couldn’t throw it all away.)

“I’m sorry, Shiro.” Matt said, raising the staff to point at him, tears threatening to spill-over, as the built-in plasma orb began to charge for its offense, a cruel cerulean.

To decimate him.

“No,” Shiro shook his head. “ _I’m_ sorry.”

Matt fired, a terrible keening sound erupting from his throat at the same instant; it sounded like regret, like pain; a warped love, loyalty pulled between the gravity of the moon and sun.

(Shiro was no longer anyone’s sun.

He didn’t deserve to be.

He was a blight, the shadow across the moon.)

Shiro raised the Empire’s greatest gift, greatest curse to him; he saw Matt’s eyes widen in _shock, disbelief, anger_ and that same misplaced relief.

(It didn’t hurt any less the second time)

Shiro raised the Galran arm, absorbing the pure form of energy intent on tearing him apart; he could feel the way it dissipated into him, no longer a death sentence. Instead, he felt alive; enamoured; _energized_ by the way it coursed through his bloodstream, lit up the circuitry between his mismatched parts, almost made him one whole.

As the glow receded, he saw what he was reflected in Matt’s expressive eyes; a monster.

He held his gaze, despite the way his heart crumbled to ash, and then he fired back.

The energy erupted in a crackle of lilac lightning, branching out, striking the sentries beside Matt down, instantly short-circuiting them.

Matt- mostly unharmed- was pinned by the dead weight of metal, as they collapsed.

There was a louder noise then, a clattering and a shudder in the very fabric of air itself.

_Magic_.

He turned, focusing on the wrongness of his Galra arm, the way it seemed to jolt towards the eastern end of this hovel, vibrating in the aftermath of that spike of energy.

Powerful magic, then.

It was from the direction Keith had gone in.

( _Naturally_ , he thought, anxious but amused in resignation.)

He only paused to glance once more towards Matt, still struggling.

Shiro would be lying if he said he didn’t consider putting him down for a moment. For that moment, it was about calculation- the benefits and the downsides- was Matt more trouble dead or alive?

The part of him that had been born of the Arena, the _Champion_ that had thrived in it, would have done it. Used the last flicker of energy, still sizzling through the circuitry in the Galran arm, and burnt a hole in his chest; an easy shot.

The animal instinct, and the part of him that was still Takashi Shirogane, however, recoiled from the notion.

No matter the consequences, he could not- _would not-_ hurt Matt.

Matt had meant something; To kill him would kill something in Shiro, and he’d already lost enough of himself to the Arena.

Shiro broke his stare, just as a cry of pain resonated- almost reverberated in his head- then was choked off.

( _Stay here_ , his heart implored.

_Keith,_ the loyal thing in his head insisted.)

He had to close his eyes to walk away, then he ran without another glance back.

( _He would live to regret it_ , the Champion promised.)

Shiro decidedly did not think about exactly which part the intrusively _other_ thought was referring to.

                                                                                              ***

**ALLURA:**

Revenge was supposed to feel less bittersweet.

It was supposed to be a long well-fought battle, a decisive victory, a triumph after her years of strife.

Allura was meant to be relieved, glorious in her right… her might; ideals of honour brought back to life. Her fight finally fought, finally succeeded by peace.

Her conquest was not intended to be in a killing haze, hands shaking with wrath, painted in disturbingly cruel hues of burgundy with the aura shrouding her senses.

It was not supposed to be like this; a beautiful stranger, a man broken at her feet, thrashing as if he didn’t not know how to fight for everything.

(Even bruised and bleeding, faltering at his knees, he cut a striking figure.)

It was not supposed to feel like an assassination.

His mauve eyes a brand upon her, as if judging her worth and finding her lacking.

As if she had been the one using him, deceiving _him,_ and not the other way around.

Despite everything, that was what stung the most.

Allura had almost believed she had met her match, an equal.

(Someone to rule beside.

_A bond_ , some traitorous part of her whispered, some odd last remnant of the dreaming child she had been.

_No,_ she hissed, viciously silencing that murmur. She would not entertain that fantasy even in thought.)

She forced her vision outward once more meeting Keith’s gaze.

Staring her down even without breath, without strength as his struggling petered out into aborted jerks; he remained angry, defiant, and yet somehow insatiate.

She had to tamp down on the sudden flare of her emotion, deeper than she had expected.

Regret and undilute desire, she realized with disgust, pithy fury rising with her self-loathing.

(Admiration, despite everything.)

Keith’s whole body convulsed- once, then twice- and his eyes- those alluring, galactic eyes- began to roll back into his head, eyes sliding shut.

Allura raised her hand to crush his windpipe into dust, to ash.

(But…)

She found her own eyes closing involuntarily, as her fingers twitched, responding to her command as if through a delay.

Allura began to close her fist, ignoring the way the clasping seemed to mirror as if contracting around her own heart.

This would end now.

***

**SHIRO:**

He saw it unfold as if through a frame, a scene in a theatre, the final act of a tragedy; a beautiful woman set cruelly aglow in the strobe lights of the club. Her hand was raised, and Keith _-_ impossible, inconquerable, indomitable _Keith-_ lay at her feet, fractured and bleeding, visibly suffocating.

His eyes were closed, hands clasped at his throat as if trying to pry an invisible grip open, a horribly fatal silence in the bubble of space surrounding the two.

Shiro launched himself forward before he registered anything more.

He was furious, he realized, and something a lot like defensive loyalty and an urge to protect settled over him, firmer than ever before.

Unshakeable, an animal instinct.

An all-encompassing flash enveloped him, followed by a searing pain that coursed through his entire body; transformative like a crashing wave, thorough like a restructuring.

He could feel the odd sensation of being made anew, his spine curving and reforming; teeth lengthening lethally; there was pain, but oddly muted, as though the light was keeping his nerve endings separate to spare him.

His vision deepened, sharp but surrounded by a dark ring- like actual tunnel vision.  It focused on the woman, and the rest seemed to fade away, as though she was gravity and nothing else could hold him down.

He leapt, and it was a sinuous movement, the scores of feet disappearing to nothing as he crashed into the woman’s back, and she collapsed under his solid weight, hitting the ground heavily.

And Shiro? He _growled_ , low and menacing; feral.

***

**KEITH:**

Keith gasped, voice and air returning in one overwhelming instant.

It all turned to thorns in his sandpaper rough throat, and he coughed painfully, repeatedly; where he was once choking on the lack of air, he was now drowning in its excess.

There was a pounding in between his forehead, a bassline at his temples. Even lying prone on the ground, struggling to get his arms out under him, was more than he could take.

Everything was spinning, and he felt not unlike having been run over by a bulldozer.

Albeit, a very graceful, immensely powerful, magic-imbued bulldozer.

(Later, he would blame the lack of oxygen for the ridiculous trains of thought his mind was chasing after)

He laughed- groaned- or tried to at least make a middling sound. His voice merely cleaved painfully down the middle.

Attempts at sound were ripped away, dead on arrival, but the coughing continued undeterred. Somehow, through force of will alone, he managed to raise himself up onto quavering arms and knees, so he’d count his victories where he could.

He was rewarded by the dubious pleasure of being able to watch himself retch up blood onto the already filthy alcove floor.

_Lovely_.

Keith was considering giving into the disorientation, and just lying back down in the pool of his mortality, when a very familiar furry creature wedged himself under Keith’s (aching) arm and arched his back, lever-like, propelling him onto his backside.

He smiled weakly- as the fox propped him up, using himself as a crutch- unable to manage anything more.

The fox chittered at him, somehow reprimanding while constantly fussing around him, sniffing at him, licking at his ravaged throat, unbearably warm yet also strangely adorable.

Keith tried to laugh again but winced instead at the pang of agony that shot through him.

The fox- Shiro- just whined, plaintive.

There was a sound of rustling, and a singular footstep. That was all it took, and Shiro began to growl.

_Allura,_ he could tell without looking. There was a thread, a sliver of metal sharp as a dagger’s edge that linked them, tugged them. It had materialized into existence the moment they had touched, and his head was clearer than he could remember it ever having been.

He felt oddly light- light and light-headed.

Mostly though, it was as if a weight had been lifted off his bones. He was grounded, more solid than he had felt in months.

The relief made him giddy.

_(Sloppy,_ his mind supplied.)

Wait.

The gears in his head began slowly roiling back into action, crudely processing the rapid flurry of the last few minutes.

From meeting to _greeting_ to beating.

_(What the fuck was he even on about.)_

Keith would have ordinarily been alarmed, but instead he just found the situation mildly hilarious. He laughed without sound and promptly coughed; the result- his body splattering his hands with more blood for the trouble, burning tears sliding down his face.

(Logic came in fits and starts. The sluggish churn of his thoughts, his inability to focus and the extreme dizziness not helpful in the slightest.)

Shiro was still growling, his tail swiping tensely at the ground behind him, even as his little furry ass stilled as the scent of blood hit the air again.

It made him remember the woman currently moving in on him once again; trying to finish the job she had so valiantly started.

What was it that she had accused him of? Why had she attacked?

_(Thoroughly beaten him around_ , he corrected himself, most helpfully.

It was also weirdly, kind of a turn-on.

Never let it be said that Keith wasn’t committed to the truth.)

It had been oddly trance-like, what drew them together, and it had been jarring to have been shoved away.

He had hit his head, _hard;_ courtesy of the wall she had thrown him into.

_Concussion_ , he settled on, and it was like everything clicked into place, made sense again.

(His very own _Aha_! moment.

Mom, if she hadn’t _-_ you know- _left_ would have been proud.)

Shiro was full blown snarling now, distinctly wolf-like, his hackles rising and he put himself between the advancing princess and Keith.

The possibility of Shiro hurting himself for Keith registered, and pierced the haze of hilarity that clouded his mind.

Keith sobered; hysteria vanishing near instantly in the face of the preservation of the one thing- the one person he would repeatedly walk through fire for.

(He had thought the princess a potential ally, but judging by the way she had snapped, he needed to get off his ass, get Shiro somewhere safe.)

 “Shi-” he tried, his vocal cords only managing a grating rasp, as his mind finally began to catch up.

It was enough; Shiro the fox turned to glance over his shoulder, no longer snarling. Keith engulfed his hands in the russet fur at Shiro’s shoulders, both as a crutch to pull himself forward, and yank the fox back if needed.

Shiro merely bristled defensively and kept his gaze forwards as if unwilling to take his eyes off Allura more than momentarily.

“ _Warenae_.” She said, softly. “I have no quarrel with _you_.”

With _you_ , she had said. What was her quarrel with Keith?

As if to make up for the previous sluggishness, Keith’s mind kicked into overdrive, dizzying in more ways than just the headache.

Why would she touch him and then turn against him?

What was going on?

What was her game?

How could he protect their fledgling resistance if he was barely able to move without retching? How would he get Shiro out of here?

But the question that rankled the most, lingered and swam circles around the suddenly rampant nausea in his gut…

Where was the hollow agony that had plagued him for as long as he could recall?

***

**ALLURA** :

One moment, Allura had been upright, facing down a Galran assailant.

The next she was down flat, knocked down by a staggering force at her back.

She hadn’t even seen it coming.

_It_ being a gigantic red fox- big as a wolf, bigger than she had ever seen- randomly distributed tufts of his fur turned white as snow.

He bounded off to help up the fallen Galra, and she found herself suddenly confused.

_Warenae_ were loyal, territorial creatures. They were scholars and warriors, terrifying in their totality. They could not be bought, and only defended those who possessed a certain merit, a value.

Even love did not hold sway over loyalty to the cause.

They were the unchanging wind; resistant and unyielding. They had been slaughtered mercilessly by Zarkon and his witch for that very tendency.

If a Warenae was protecting a Galra, there was something more afoot.

(if her conflicted heart also loosened at the idea of not having to harm Keith, she didn’t want to think too much of it)

She stepped forward, and the fox turned to her and bared his teeth.

Snarling.

Behind him, Keith coughed up a near-stream of blood, struggling to breathe, to parse.

She felt a sharp pang of unnecessary guilt resonate through her.

“ _Warenae_.” She said, softly. “I have no quarrel with _you_.”

“Sh-shi-ro.” Keith finally grated out, hands bone-white with strain as he tightly gripped the fox. He gasped in one breath then another, as if it had taxed what little strength he had remaining. it was painful even to hear.

The fox stilled instantly, turning to his companion, ignoring Allura’s words entirely.

It was plain as day, as if it had been spoken aloud; a quarrel with his friend was a quarrel with the _Ware-_ the fox.

Keith struggled to his feet, and like a line had been drawn in the sand, she froze; the fox- Shiro- went instantly to his side, helping him up.

There was a flash of blinding light, and a man straightened in place of the fox; Keith’s arm slung around his shoulder, an arm around his waist.

At one glance, he was powerfully built, more so than most Warenae; it explained why his fox form was larger than the norm. Shiro towered even over Keith.

The second glance revealed him to be chiseled from stone, from the impeccable features to the hard expression. His eyes were grey flint, his jaw angular marble; his hair was obsidian streaked through with pearl.

If Keith had been beautiful, this man was handsome. A warrior, with unmistakeable presence.

The broad quartz scar across the bridge of his nose only enhanced this impression.

Allura startled, badly.

(Dark hair, attractive as sin, unmissable presence, _scar_ …)

“ _You’re_ the Oriri faction leader.” She said, too thunderstruck to stop herself, filter her words. “But you were said to be human…”

His eyes darkened.

Allura could have kicked herself.

Shiro opened his mouth and was quietly interrupted by Keith who murmured- so soft that even Allura’s senses couldn’t catch the words.

Shiro was suddenly very, very still. “Princess of Altea.” He said, finally, voice cool but not entirely cold despite the situation; composed. “I wish this meeting could have been under better circumstances.” Here, there was a sharp note of reprimand.

Keith- despite the way he seemed to be sagging against Shiro- sighed.

“Likewise.” She said, off-puttingly ashamed. It had been years since she had been made to feel so young, so foolish, and it was an unexpected emotion.

She wasn’t even sure why she felt like she had done something wrong.

It was in those too sincere eyes. He was looking at her like she had disappointed him; It was alarmingly upsetting.

“I’ve been searching for you, for many a moon.” Allura said, a peace offering in her tone.

“It seems you’ve found us.” Shiro gritted out, jaw clenching as his gaze flitted off her, and over his bleeding companion.

“ _Us.._.” she said skeptically, a not entirely intentional move on her part, but it struck her as odd. “How can there even be a collective in this scenario?” she beseeched, wanting to appease rather than oppose.

“Why can there not be?” The faction-leader countered, unmoving.

“You spent a year in their captivity, surely you understand the need to eradicate their evil.” Allura asked softly, needing to comprehend this shafted expectation. “Surely, you can see the problem here?”

“I see _none_.” Shiro stressed, steel creeping into his tone. His grip on the devil beside him shifted a tad possessively. This man was more given to smiling than glaring, even with her non-existent association with him, Allura could tell.

Right then, however, his glower could have melted metal.

“Then you have been corrupted.” Allura felt her heart plummet, face crumpling in an obvious dismay that she couldn’t dredge up the composure to hide. “You really are their puppet; their _Champion_.”

She had been banking on allies for so long… and she was left with nothing.

Again.

It was only her pride- and disgust- that kept her from falling to her knees.

“Or maybe _you_ are the bigoted one, Princess.” Shiro barked, uncharacteristically tense, suddenly furious.

Allura flinched, “How dare you?”

“How dare _you_.” Shiro snapped back, viciously. “You have assaulted my Second on neutral grounds; that is a declaration of enmity. You clearly don’t know this game nearly as well as you think you do.”

“Your _Second_? Games?” she laughed, short and sharp; utterly unamused. “That _beast_ tried to feed on me. I am not the one declaring war. I was only exacting my right to put down a feral fiend. Don’t your savage laws encourage an eye for an eye?” she was skating a dangerous line between anger and anguish, and while she was outnumbered, she wasn’t overpowered.

But there were too many people, too many witnesses to truly unleash her power.

She had to leave.

(She was alone, she was alone _, she was alone_.)

“He is not a beast.” Shiro snarled and jerked forward aggressively.

Keith let out a small cry of pain at the jolt, and just for an instant, Shiro’s attention was diverted.

It was enough.

Despite how dirty she felt- striking at someone’s back- Allura raised both her hands to end what could potentially have been her deadliest ally; her one shot to turn the tide of this war. She would end the Captain first, and then his lieutenant... or maybe she’d save him for questioning.

War was not won with sentiment.

( _But…_

She wouldn’t allow herself to consider it.)

She clenched, a phantom extension of her hand borne on air, to snatch the very air from the Champion’s lungs, just as she had incapacitated the Galra.

This time she would not be stopped.

There was a second’s hush, the club rippling with awareness as her aura flared; as Shiro, sensing it, looked back to her, realizing too late that he had turned his back on the wrong person.

His eyes went wide, and then resigned.

His face lit in pantone hues; rose quartz and serenity.

Allura felt something in herself twist, senses beating fast enough that everything else slowed down around her.

Her fingers met her palm, intent on suffocating Shiro.

The next instant, Keith seemed to scrounge up the final dregs of his strength, using the fist he had had tangled in the fabric at Shiro’s back. He shoved Shiro away and overbalanced directly into the path of the hand.

It struck him hard, as if it impacted more than his lungs, and he went down.

Keith didn’t get back up.

Shiro howled, in fury and fear and the fox bled through in the sound.

Her control shattered for the first time in decades, a searing pain fracturing her chest. Allura took an inadvertent step back, unnerved by the sacrifice, by the diversion from her expectation, from the odd, lingering pain.

Shiro eyes flickered a familiar topaz, and she felt her heart stop.

The aura that had been largely undetectable flared to life behind him, and it was nothing she had ever known before.  It was angry, virulent and all-encompassing. It hit her like the scent of smoke, ash, blood, cold decay and embers. It felt like knives to her too-sharp senses and it was all she could do to not cry out from the quiet horror of it.

“What are you?” she gasped through the miasma of misery, through the weirdly distinct yet unavoidable agony in her ribcage.

Shiro merely took one threatening step forward, and then another; suddenly, the aura was the least startling thing about him.

What Allura had momentarily mistaken for specks of blood on his face was trickling across it, forming sickle shaped marks: a bastardization of her own crescents. They began as hers did- blood-red dips below the curve of his glowing grey eyes- but stretched almost to the inner corner where the soft lines turned sharper, cruel edged as they tapered to the bridge of his nose, crossing paths with the savage scarring. Above it all, like an arrow piercing through, it cut across his brow, over eye and cheek, the shaft intersecting the initial arrow-head, ending in a lethal point.

Altean marks… but not.

The harshness of the lines, the way the sigil simmered and shifted along his scarred skin, like deep-grooved welts, like it’d been burned in.

_Wrong_.

Allura didn’t need her ability to pick up auras to tell her what she could see.

_Unnatural,_ her every sense seemed to scream.

Her hands were shaking, quivering like a newborn foal, like the leaf in the wind.

The predator that strode towards her- for that was what Shiro was, what was left of him- had no pity in his gaze.

She knew the pain in her heart, her lungs, knew that something sinister was at play- a summon to Death itself.

She let her power curl free, from its invisible restraints- from her control- in a way it hadn’t been since she had grown both in years and in power; since she- and her father- had realized the kind of terrible weapon she wielded.

Allura could feel everything; every exhale, every breath, every puff of wind in the club. She was the smoke, the swirl of air in their lungs, the shift in pressure with each step, the far-off strengthening squall not yet visible to the Oriri over their clouded skies.

She was everything, and she lashed out.

The air struck Shiro hard, advancing still despite the intense pressure beating him back, a mere arm outstretched to keep the whipping wind from stinging his eyes.

His eyes glowed with that same duality, topaz and grey meeting seamlessly.

It should have been pathetically underplayed, one arm against a tempest, and yet… it _held_.

He kept walking forward, against a storm that should have shattered his bones, unyielding even as Allura’s considerable power drained her dry; she had never tried to hold on to this much all at once…could hear her father’s multitude of warnings that only insanity waited down that path.

Her bones screamed, head pounding, blood galvanizing, her very essence straining; she could feel the limit, the crevasse; the beckoning abyss.

She knew she could hold on still, break the boundaries of her mortal form and take from the core of creation around her, fuel herself to vanquish whatever foes stood before her.

She could feel Madness approach, curious and taunting, a sly opportunist waiting for her to let it in.

She could…but she wouldn’t.

Allura felt every inch of the effort to let go, tears welling up in her eyes, as that horrible raging wind died, as she crumpled to her knees.  “What are you?” she whispered, defeated, unable to keep herself standing through the ache in her being, the hollowness in her bones- the twinging in her lungs ebbing as the myriad pains converged.

“I am the Empire’s greatest weapon.” Shiro said bitterly, also slowing above her. His hand was outstretched, a mocking mirror of her own stance when she had attacked his open back.

She looked at the arm, the magic and technology infusing in the knots and bolts. It was deepest pitch, hewn roughly from granite, surprisingly elegant in its finish, fingers fine-boned despite the raw power it seethed. It glowed violet, and somehow within the depths of the malignant quintessence, she could see the fury of the hurricane she had unleashed, as if he had absorbed it.

The arm, the intensity _,_ the _assimilation_.

Galran.

The fox form, the shifting, the loyalty and strength.

Warenae.

The sigils on his face, the aura- the misery steeped in it- the unflinching way he had surpassed the storm. The bridge to his different parts.

Altean.

The endurance, the perseverance…his own. _Oriri_.

A year in the captivity of the Witch.

This man…

He looked at her, considering, reading the emotion in her eyes. “Horrifying, isn’t it?” Shiro said, strangely soft, seeing the situation.

She was at his mercy, and yet Allura didn’t have words to speak.

She struggled to swallow, unable to stop staring.

“While I have quite the ability to render people speechless, I would have thought a princess to have her immunities.”

His aura…it was so full of agony and the horrors he had likely seen.

Allura felt her eyes well up in tears, of fear, of sorrow and helplessness.

He dropped his beastly arm, extending the human hand, a quiet offer to stand on her own two feet.

She didn’t understand.

Why he didn’t strike her down, why someone who had been through what he had…

“ _Why_?” she murmured, taking his hand, using his strength; the underlying chasm of unfathomable fortitude that had allowed him to survive this ordeal and yet still manage compassion.

Why would he not destroy her, the world in anger? It would have been well-deserved.

Why would he protect the Galra? Go so far in losing his head and remarkable restraint to shield him?

“D-do not dare pity him, Princess.” The voice that growled was quiet, as if he couldn’t find enough of his voice to yell.

(Oh.)

_Keith_.

He had not quite managed to get up, covered in blood and bruises, still on his hands and knees, but his eyes were furious, steady storms.

_Alive_.

Despite everything… despite everything, Shiro smiled, and looked back, his face softening.

Young, and beautiful.

The marks around Shiro’s eyes flaked off, like dried blood. The glow suffusing the knots of technology guttered out, as his eyes returned to their steady slate.

“I do not pity _him_.” She said venomous but low, despite the urge to snarl. She did not pity the warrior in front of her at all, this man who had suffered so much, and yet stood so tall, so sincere. “I don’t understand why he would _tolerate_ Galra after all they did to him.”

Keith merely blinked at her, intense glare flickering momentarily under lowered brows, before settling into neutrality. He glanced sideways at Shiro, pushing back shakily onto his haunches, sitting back with an ill-concealed wince.

It was confusion, she realized.

_He didn’t know_.

Shiro’s mouth twisted, imperceptible, but his face was expressive and Allura had always been adept at the unseen. “You know.” She breathed, silently. “He doesn’t.”

Shiro winced but inclined his head.

Keith was very, very still across from them. “Shiro?” he asked haltingly- as if hating that he had needed to ask, hating that he couldn’t mutely trust- even as his eyes whirred with emotions untold.

Shiro opened his mouth.

Chaos erupted.

***

**KEITH** :

Shiro stood there, hand in hand with the Princess, never mind that moments ago she had nearly killed them all.

Could have, and would have, had Shiro not stepped in; wielding the one thing that grated on him most in the aftermath of that one year.

Keith despised that he was the reason Shiro had had to use it, when it was the one thing that he couldn’t bear.

Keith gritted his teeth and snapped at Allura when she deigned to look at Shiro with pity in those ocean eyes.

She did not get to pity him for all that he had survived through.

She snapped right back.

Shiro winced, and did not deny it.

What had she shouted at him?

Galra?

Keith wondered if his concussion had finally caught up to him.

Oddly though, it seemed to click, resounding off a deeply entrenched piece of his soul, long forgotten.

A puzzle piece, a shape that finally fit its boundary, aligning into place; gears interlocking and his blood greasing the wheels; prompting them back into motion once more.

_Galra._

He blinked and blinked, through the tears in his eyes, the lump in his throat, the burning of his blood and the ache of his bones.

It made sense… who he was, what he was.

Why he’d always been angry, touch starved and yet loathing it.

It had never been enough.

It had never been the right _kind_.

And his _father_ -

It was the thought that made his blood run cold, moments before everything went to hell.

Again.

This time though, with Allura spent, and Keith broken in near half, nothing could prevent the blow that blasted Shiro back.

He landed on the jagged rubble where Allura had near buried Keith, hard.

Keith managed to tear his eyes from Shiro’s prone form long enough to register what they were up against.

It was the witch- hooded and masked- seven of her sentries forming the vanguard in front of her, and they were advancing.

On Shiro.

To reclaim him.

_No_.

It scorched through him, all-encompassing rage and a liquifying kind of energy Keith had never known to exist inside him.

Despite the exhaustion of his physical body, the agony that had lived inside him was no longer there to contain him.

Even though Keith could not stand, he felt free, and like for the first time he could see clearly. The outlet for this wicked wrath, a channel bridged in ash and metal, leading away from his beleaguered body.

Keith roared, raising a solitary shaking hand, and let go.

It poured out of him in droves, waves of pulsing flame; a maelstrom of his lifetime of pent-up fury, his frustration, his forlornness.

He had never belonged, he had never known peace, he had never had a friend, family, until Shiro.

_Shiro_.

He was the key, and Keith the kindling; and he burned, and burned, and burned.

The sentries were reduced to little more than shards of fracturing metal, turning molten, and hisses of crackling, undirected quintessence.

The resulting explosion flung her back, hood incinerated in the strands of flame that escaped the demolition zone where the sentries had been.

Not her, _him._

Matt.

He cried out as he hit the ground, cheek splattering open on a fragment of burning-hot metal.

Keith didn’t feel an iota of regret.

_“Shiro_ ,” Keith gasped in on a breath, on the last of his oxygen; his fires banked, consumed.

Shiro did not rise.

Keith could not feel enough of his body to do much, except to watch as Matt did rise, his eyes not his own. They were wicked, and ancient; ochre and pupil-less.

When he spoke, the words were also not his own. “Half breed traitor,” a soulless rasp, an unfeeling step forward.

Towards Keith.

Keith couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find the air or the strength, knew his imminent doom like the fingers of his hand, but he refused to cower.

He kept his gaze steady, the only thing he had any lingering control over.

“A traitor to his own, deserves to die alone.” The entity’s voice overlapped Matt’s, and when his hand made contact with Keith’s forehead, he couldn’t stop the horrible, pathetic sound he let out in the face of the onslaught of torment.

It was indescribable, the sensation that washed over him. He had thought he had known pain, but this was entirely Other.

He screamed, and he screamed, and he screamed; despite previously not even having had the air to breathe. He begged, for release, for Shiro, for parents long since gone, on a voice that wouldn’t form, tattering into disjointed scraps of sound.

His eyes welled with tears, and burned on the way through, staining his vision with something far more viscous than water, far less translucent. The same warm wetness gushed from his nose, his mouth, and trickled out of his ears.

He began to thrash, the movement entirely uncontrolled and uncoordinated, yet couldn’t seem to escape the frigid, white hot palm on his forehead.

So, he screamed soundlessly, and drowned in a river of his own blood.

The darkness when it finally swept in to claim him was a welcome mercy.

***

**ALLURA:**

She fell as Shiro was hurled away, legs giving way under her without his support.

She saw as Keith released an uncontrolled eruption of fire into the attacking crew, decimating them, flinging the shrouded figure back.

She felt that fledgling link she had perceived between them go taut, as he kept pouring out an endless stream of power, draining his very essence dry.

That curling tendril between them, she knew it now; Knew it for what it was, knew that if she had had anything to spare, she could have fueled his flame a little longer.

As it was though, drifting in and out of consciousness, she saw the flame splutter and go out entirely.

Through a disjointed awareness, she heard the voice of her nightmares escape the boy she had earlier seen tending the bar.

Saw Haggar using the boy as a vessel, touching Keith’s forehead, and watched as he fell apart; screaming with a voice that broke, repeatedly; watched as he bled and struggled.

Watched as he quieted, stilled.

Felt regret so acute, that it near cleaved her heart in two.

_Please_ , she begged, _please_.

In the only way she knew, she reached out; flung her essence out wide, straining to find something, anything.

There was only silence.

***

**SHIRO** :

Being thrown back by the potent pulse of energy had disoriented Shiro more than he could admit.

It had taken precious moments to stop the ringing, the reverberating of his head echoing like screams of pure agony.

When his head cleared, it was to a heavy silence; the calm after the storm, a quiescence.

An uneasy truce; fragmented; rife with anger- bitter and tumultuous.

The lingering curse, devastating the land to ashes.

Shiro breathed in the smoke and dust, as he stood. Saw the wasteland in front of him, and knew he was not wrong.

Crumbling walls, dredged up floors, fractured and uneven. Plaster cascading from the ceiling in an absurd mockery of snow, an eerie hush coating everything, pervading his senses just as pungently as the blood in the air.

The silence was resounding, stentorian.

Shiro stood upon the hillock of rubble, and even _knowing_ just what he’d see, it still broke his heart; near-shattered it when he saw Matt standing across him, utterly calm, eyes glowing with the sinister yet unmistakable malevolent ochre of the Witch.

His cheek was bleeding copiously, a deep gash that would likely scar, but he didn’t seem to notice. Chalk dust coated his hair, turning it white, wight-like, another unshakeable link to the Witch inhabiting him.

Matt’s eyes- her eyes- were solely on him.

“Champion,” she rasped, mouth curling into a taunting bastardization of Matt’s smile.

Shiro shuddered and looked away, unable to hold his/her gaze.

His sight snagged on a crumpled body at Matt’s feet.

Shiro felt his heart stop entirely.

_Keith_.

Bloodied, damningly so- surely a human body couldn’t lose so much lifeblood and still hold more- arms arranged within a mosaic of clawing fingers and struggling limbs, yet utterly still; empty of that iron will or irrefutable spirit.

“Beautiful, is it not?” she asked, cruelly amused.

Shiro wanted to cry; instead, he honed the despair, the enraged flutter of his heart, and launched himself at Matt.

The Witch laughed in delight, high and pealing, and Matt stood his ground until Shiro tackled into him. He laughed, _she laughed_ , as Shiro raised his fist to punch in his skull and faltered.

“What’s the matter, Champion?” she taunted.

Shiro shuddered and grit his teeth, still straddling the body he had once known so intimately, now unfamiliar with changes wrought in time and tenure.

_Keith_ , he reminded himself. _For Keith._

Matt was gone, he was gone.

But the face, the eyes; they were his.

For the ochre had receded, revealing the amber resin, even as the smile lingered, hellish and callous.

She knew he couldn’t do it.

That was why she had picked Matt.

Shiro felt the frustrated prick of tears, and howled, arm still shaking where it was pulled back in the pretense of threat.

“Shiro,” she said, using Matt’s voice, and Shiro shattered.

He flinched back, flinging himself into the recesses of his own mind, where instinct and intelligence met, where emotion wasn’t as invasive or interminable; he reached out desperately, and then the shift was upon him.

Blinding light, casting Matt’s face aglow, eyes wide in genuine sentiment, not the shadowed echoes the Witch had weaved across his features.

The pain was fleeting in comparison, to the shock of Keith so still on the floor, the horrified look in Matt’s eyes, the flash of disbelief.

An ember-eyed fox stared into the amber eyes of the boy beneath him.

The amber eyes grew wet, and Matt went limp.

***

**MATT  
**

The tears that overtook him were fast and furious.

It had been too long, had taken far too long to adjust to the cleaving, to the certainty that half of him was gone and would never return; had taken days, months, years to realize that the very essence of who he was had been fractured and he had been left unmoored.

Shiro was dead, he had been broken, and the world was without hope; beyond saving.

He had been lost and had made very a many mistakes in the dampening blanket of fury and grief that had followed. He had escaped and without questioning the how, he had foolishly thought he was safe from the Witch’s clutches and could return to the family he had treasured closely to his aching, fraying heart.

She had found him, never truly having lost him, and threatened his precious family with the very thing he had been to ashamed to disclose to them.

He could no longer shift.

His Ware form had been stolen from him; ripped away, and disintegrated because he had dared dream of mutiny, of a better world.

He was nothing.

He was no one.

Lost without even his own soul left whole- the animal spirit that allowed him the comfort of the Mother force, the lifestream that linked them all, made him part of something larger than himself- he was alone.

But there it was, the fox atop his chest, staring back at him with his eyes.

The weight on his chest…the quiet comfort… the expression overlapping with the aura that had always been Shiro, the flecks of grey in the fox’s eyes that had not been there before, the compassion and the fur turning arctic white in great patches…

The sensation of coming home, yet finding it irrevocably altered. The free fall from a misjudged step, the relocated treehouse, the childhood bedroom redecorated…the heart stopping moment of realizing once again that nothing was the same.

Matt wept, and in the face of that unfailing emotion, the face of his other halves, both in body and soul; reunited once more with years between them, the witch couldn’t resurface, renew her hold upon him.

His fox.

_Shiro_.

The witch had given his soul to Shiro, that one mistaken act of kindness.

(Maybe he was redeemable, maybe Matt could be made whole once more.)

The tears did not stop.

***

**KEITH** :

Awareness came in fits and starts- a dull aching, like his body was more bruise than flesh; the hunger; the thirst; the drained core of his heart; the incoherent thoughts; the abominable weakness- all forming layers upon layers of his consciousness.

He supposed he had had quite the day.

The last thing he registered was the familiar scent, and well-known arms of the one carrying him; Keith breathed in, tension seeping out as he relaxed completely to slip into a blissful sleep.

_Shiro._

***

**ALLURA:**

Allura lingered, once Keith had been taken to a med bay, while her own body knitted itself up, and regenerated her severely depleted magical core. She had not been injured, thanks to Shiro’s remarkable restraint, but the same couldn’t be said for Keith.

_Galra_ , her mind whispered, traitorous but true.

However, Allura recalled the ways he had stepped in, using himself as a bodily shield to protect and save the Captain, time and again, despite the toll it had taken on his breaking body.

Keith couldn’t be like the others.

If he had been, he would not have withstood the torture at the hands of the Witch… rather he would have been lauded as a weapon, a secret card to be played, had he truly been what Allura had mistaken him to be.

He would have done any and everything to save his own skin, not his friends.

If Keith had been, he could not have been Takashi Shirogane’s Second – to the Captain of the Oriri Rebels whose entire aim was to liberate the galaxies from Galran tyranny. Or his platonic bond-mate if Allura was reading their behavior correctly.

For a Galra to have two soul-bonds, let alone one, was nearly unheard of.

_Two_ , she thought chagrined.

Her own bond with Keith was unmistakable, now that she was not deliberately obstructing herself to the truth.

Their being drawn to each other, the way they had been so enamoured, so unable to not touch, not consume each other…

Shiro had been right, she had become blinded by her hate, and Keith could possibly still pay the price for her mistakes.

She sighed.

“I thought I might find you here.” Shiro’s voice was gentle.

She startled anyway. “Shiro.”

“He’ll be fine.” He said assuredly, a man who would not take it as anything less than absolute truth.

“I don’t understand,” she admitted, sagging, eyeing the aura-bond that flowed between Shiro and Keith. That likely flowed between herself and Keith as well, invisible to her. “How is this possible?”

“Keith’s always been good at defying expectations; doing the impossible.” Shiro said, softly amused, proud, even as worry lingered in the creases of his eyes.

“We are bonded.” She said, in soft disbelief. “A Galra with a soul-bond… _two_.”

“The world is changing, Princess.” Shiro smiled at her, despite everything that had happened over the past few days, despite everything he had been through, he was comforting _her_. “You shouldn’t get so hung up over the semantics to be unable to enjoy it.”

Allura gave him a once-over, and then ripped off the band-aid. “Why are you being so kind?”

“Why should I not be? We can’t fight monsters by becoming them… or there would be no victory.” Shiro’s eyes were so very steady, it rooted her in a way she hadn’t been since Altea’s Fall.

Allura swallowed, feeling chastened despite his mild words. “Thank you.”

“Any time, Princess.” He said, laying a large hand on her shoulder, as they both watched the steady rise and fall of Keith’s chest through the observatory window.

***

**KEITH** :

He woke to a pull, one quicksilver warmth and turbulent emotion, the other steady, mooring and more familiar to him than breathing.

Keith opened his eyes, and there they were. Unsurprisingly, Shiro to his right, and less expectedly, Allura to his left.

“Hey.” He croaked, trying to haul himself up the mountain of pillows behind his back, and only somewhat succeeding.

Shiro smiled, bracingly, and Allura’s face contorted oddly before melting all at once.

“ _I’m sorry_.” She gasped out, “I am sorry for endangering you, and Captain Shirogane both, and for raising my hand to you in a neutral zone.” Here she blushed, as if recalling what her hands had been doing before she had turned on him and broken nearly half the bones of his body.

(There was something seriously wrong with Keith, that the unbridled strength was still a turn-on, despite lying in a med bay half-dead)

Keith swallowed, waving the errant thought away, and managed a shaky smile. “Apology accepted.”

It was odd, despite everything, he felt settled.

Relaxed.

No pain, or unchecked anger.

Almost happy.

He could feel her there, an awareness, and a fluttering line of emotion linking them; the way he had always been able to sense Shiro, even before he had been taken; even after.

_Bonded_.

“Matt?” he asked Shiro, remembering suddenly, eyes turning grim even as he turned from Allura somewhat reluctantly.

(flashes of pain, the searing pain, the restlessness.

Screaming _screaming_ screaming.

_No_.)

“Safe.” Shiro smiled again, true relief and maybe a quieter sort of joy. He didn’t elaborate on anything that had gone on after Keith had blacked out. “We’re safe.”

Keith just returned the smile, knowing intrinsically that Shiro had not seen the extent of the events and not wanting to fill him in. He filed away the questions for another day.

Allura to his left was eyeing him as if she had felt that twinge of emotion; the spike of fear, of agony and distress.

She likely had.

_Bonded_ , the word merited repeating, Keith thought with no small measure of wonder.

Shiro excused himself to check up on Matt.

Keith turned to Allura with only a second of hesitation. “Princess.”

She winced a little. “Keith, I am truly sorry, for judging you without truly knowing you…”

“Don’t mention it.” He said, a little awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck.

“So… where do we go from here?” Allura asked tentatively.

Keith jolted a little, then winced at the ache that reverberated through him at the sudden motion. Maybe not completely recovered yet. “I didn’t assume there was any future… with… what happened.” He hedged.

Allura winced again. “I admit it was the last thing I expected.”

“Yeah.” Keith murmured, looking down at his hands.

“Not in that way…” Allura amended hastily. “It’s just that I have been chased for who I am for so long that my past clouded my eyes to the truth. I was wrong to judge you on heritage alone, but it will take some getting… used to.”

_I want to start over._ A sentiment unspoken, but still lingered in the air, palpable through the bond as obvious as if the letters were hovering in front of them.

Keith nodded, in acknowledgement of both her words and the unvoiced ones flowing through the bond, and then throwing caution to the wind, patted on the bed beside him. “Sit, you look tired.”

Smooth.

He winced at his callous bluntness.

If anything, though, Allura seemed to appreciate the gesture and smiled, small but there. “Thankyou.”

She climbed up next to him, and they spent the next few minutes sitting in silence somewhere between comfortable and not.

“My father was Altean.” He blurted out, apropos of nothing. “It’s why we likely bonded; why I lost control. The Galra half was likely feeding off my Altean half, which was why I was nearly half-crazed with touch starvation and pain, and I apologize for pushing myself onto you.”

She only listened, and seemed to consider, only interjecting softly when he paused for breath. “I meant it, Keith, I may have misjudged you before but I am determined to know you regardless of what you may or may not be. Galra, or Oriri or Altean.”

Keith felt something unwind in him, not having even realized how much her opinion, her acceptance of him would matter. “I appreciate it, Princess.”

“ _Allura_.” She said, simply.

“Allura.” He repeated and smiled. “It’s nice to finally meet you.” he said surprised at how much he meant it.

She beamed back.

***

 

**Author's Note:**

> The idea is that this could (eventually, Maybe?) be part of a series of (mostly) standalones which will be vaguely interlinked with regards to the general larger plot(s), set in this verse, with the rest of the ensemble showing up and covering the remainder of the species mentioned.
> 
> Feel free to comment, or ask anything that you didn’t quite get, or come talk about this 'verse (or just plain say hi) on tumblr [@theincrediblesulkmachine](http://theincrediblesulkmachine.tumblr.com)
> 
> (Your words are more motivation to continue writing fanfiction than you realize)
> 
> thanks for reading!


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